World's biggest pop-up book displayed at Marin County Fair

When Miko Lee says books loom large in the lives of the students at the education nonprofit Youth in Arts, she isn't kidding. With the help of Marin County fairgoers and professional artists, the students created the world's unofficial largest pop-up book — 48 feet long by 6 feet high.

The book, titled "Travel the World," was a work in progress all five days of the fair at the Exhibit Hall, and was finished Sunday night. The book, made of huge sheets of cardboard with drawings, paintings and collages affixed to them, depicts mountain ranges, volcanoes and icons such as the Empire State Building.

"Every day of the fair, about 150 people, mostly children, worked to create the book," said Lee, who has been the San Rafael group's executive director for seven years.

While the pop-up book hasn't yet been officially certified as the world's largest, its measurements give it a much larger area than the current recordholder. That book, "My Word," created in 2010 for a television commercial for a Belgium-based company, was 13 feet and 1 inch by 19 feet, 8 inches.

Children as young as 2 worked on the project, which involved ripping up old books that were donated to Youth in Arts and using them to create a collage, Lee said. Suzanne Joyal, the group's director of Artists in Schools, was in charge of the project.

Lee said 33,000 children in Marin and Sonoma counties are involved in the education nonprofit, which was founded in 1970. Youth in Arts also has the only children's art gallery in the North Bay.